


Soup.Hot.No Bowl

by Velliacrum



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:48:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25719076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Velliacrum/pseuds/Velliacrum
Summary: Thanks to schoessling for reviewing this. Work of Star Trek Flash Fiction
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	Soup.Hot.No Bowl

“Soup. Hot. No Bowl,” Weapons Officer, Jr Ensign Aliya says to the replicator before briskly walking to a safe distance. She was never one to take her anger out on hologram baddies like her fellow overworked junior commanders. Just a little cathartic vengeance, break the machine and make all those hungry nightshifters and those shits in maintenance feel a fraction of her frustration. She had no taste for holo-decks, it was a little harmless mischief that makes off-duty worthwhile. She hears the machine replicate. Expecting to hear the crackling of circuits and error messages, Aliya instead hears the computer gleefully chirp... "soup (default) minestrone, hot, no bowl."

Aliya emerges from her defensive crouch, she had enough experience with electrical shortages to be paranoid about them. She goes to the machine and looks at the soup. It's there in a conclave soup bowl, but the bowl is absent. She inspects it: it smells like a seasoned but slightly bland bowl of soup. The noodles and the carrots all bob and wobble in the broth. A savory vapor emanates from the soup, and the broth forms a meniscus against the chinaware wall, but there is no wall. The soup doesn't even sit on the bottom of the replicator. The broth and vegetables diligently settle in a flat bowl-like shape a few centimeters above the replicator. Aliya reaches out with her finger to poke the soup wall, only to pull back with a cry of surprise and pain. The soup is hot, she thinks. 

But it’s not truly hot, her finger isn't red, not even from the tomato broth. 

Curious now, she puts her fist into the center of the soup, anticipating an awkward conversation about third-degree burns with the ship's MO. She feels the hot sensation again and...that's it. She knows what a burn feels like. She better, they covered half of her body after the engineering console took the brunt of a Romulan Phaser attack. This doesn’t feel like severe burns, there is no freezing-like sensation, no sudden flair of searing pain, no numbness. Her hand feels like it is covered in the sensation of touching hot soup for a brief second extended over several minutes. It is more discomfiting than painful.

Aliya pulls her hand back. Again no burn marks, no food stains. Now she’s curious. "Computer. Snow cone. Strawberry flavored. Hot."

The computer chirps and replicates a red snow cone. It was the kind of snow cone she would get with her brother in the simulations of 20th century state fairs. It looked just like her favorite. Sparkling ice crystals with the vibrancy only long-banned food coloring could provide. Everything was the same except...steam? Like the soup, the snow cone released a white vapor. When she put it to her tongue it tasted just as a snow cone would, but it's as hot as the soup. Aliya throws it away. 

"Computer. Beef Wellington. Soft serve."

A sumptuous golden-brown Beef Wellington with its aroma of wine and faint hints of mustard emerges. Aliya taps her finger against the Beef Wellington, expecting to hear the thump of the puff pastry. Instead her index finger sinks into the shell. She pulls it down and the Wellington ripples and warps. The smudges of pastry along with a layer of beef warmly coagulate around her finger. Mischief has long since been supplanted by morbid curiosity. She orders more and more things with bizarre combinations: chocolate cake with the texture of raw chicken, eggplant sunny side up, celery with the bone in, white wine crisps, macaroni made from caviar, root beer al tartare, rancid roadkill curry. Every surreal combination served with a cheerful whistle. And apart from that “replicated flavor” no one in Starfleet could place, each with a perfect standard flavor in the shape or form of something else. Something impossible.

Aliya stands there with her Salvador Dali delicacies thinking about what it could mean. Then with sudden inspiration she recalls an old user safety tutorial her brother showed her. 

"Computer. Enter debugging and safety mode. Display and suspend holographic features," 

After a pause, the computer chirps again: "Debug mode on. Assets:off. Texture maps:off. Sensory stimulation:off.Hard light suspension: off. "

“Computer. Soup. Hot. No Bowl.”

An array of moist globules sprew onto the replicator tray. Some are flakes with a semi metallic sheen. Some are dull, dry, sticky particles aggregated together into a flopping, moist, drooping tower. 

Almost hesitant to try the mucus-like substance, but deciding she must know, Aliya licks her finger and presses it against the semi organic mixture, and presses the sediment layer that adheres to her finger against her tongue. It tastes like the echo of soup, but chalky, and faintly metallic. There is also a flavor that is familiar to her, ubiquitous even, but she can't place it.

Aliya remembers this taste in every replicated meal she has ever had. She recognized the flavor in the aftertaste from the synthohol when her friend was incarcerated for refusing to obey commander Sisko's command to create a bioweapon against supposed terrorists. It was reminiscent of an aftertaste from the last awkward meal shared with her family before her brother disappeared into his holodeck addiction. She recalls the taste in the ice cream she had when her lover of 5 years abandoned her for a position on the USS Cairo without as much as a goodbye. The flavor lingered on the back of her tongue when she heard that her family's homeplanet was ravaged by the jem'hadar. It paired well with the bitter sentiment of knowing her parents died alone and brother's last moments were spent in the arms of his holographic harem. Aliya finally could tell what that taste was, that saccharine yet cold artificial flavor she had spent her career in Starfleet getting spoonfed. And after the sacrifices she made, all the hardships she endured and all that she lost, this flavor is what she would have to return to. 

"And they don't even have to hide it," she thinks to herself, “It's been there this whole time, but they know no one cares.” Right now the crew is happily chewing this powder and slurping their goop, wilfully pretending their hard light suspension of nutrient paste is a king's meal. No one wants to wake up from a good dream. 

But she can't ignore it. Aliya couldn’t get this taste out of her mouth. There is nothing real to wash away the taste. She could never explain the flavor, but she could identify it. Now she knows what it tastes like, and she knows how to improve the flavor. It tastes like the Maquis were right; all it needs is an extra dash of treason.


End file.
